In emergency medicine, patients often require treatment at a plurality of different locations beginning with the site of an incident, for example, and ending with a stationary care facility such as a hospital. Prior to reaching the stationary care facility, patients are often transported in an ambulance and/or spend time in a temporary care facility such as an emergency room. The combination of these locations can be referred to as the “chain of care,” wherein each different location constitutes a link in the chain.
In many situations, medical personnel are required to administer resuscitation or life support gases, such as oxygen, to patients along the entire chain of care. For example, a first responder to the site of an incident may administer oxygen to the patient from an emergency breathing apparatus. Then, once the ambulance arrives, the patient is transferred thereto and administered oxygen from a system carried within the ambulance. Finally, upon reaching an emergency care facility, the patient can be administered oxygen from a more permanent oxygen supply system. Depending on the emergency care facility, the patient may yet again be transferred to a different oxygen supply system when transferred to a stationary care facility. As such, the supply of oxygen to the patient is often interrupted as the patient is transferred between each of the links in the chain of care.